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Now this really is something special...! The bright young things at Imagine have confidently pledged themselves to the production of totally original arcade-style software for a variety of home machines - no Pac-man rip-offs here.

First impressions of Arcadia are of a high degree of professionalism. The colourful cassette insert credits the game and graphics designers; take a bow, D Lawson and M Butler. Arcadia also offers a lifetime guarantee. If one of their games fails to load, it will be replaced at once, free of charge.

This is certainly a step to be encouraged. Instructions for setting up are clear and concise, and there's a touch of sly humour in that the alien beasties you are battling against belong to the Atari-an Empire. Of course, it could just be coincidence...

The object of the game is fairly standard zap-the-alien stuff. The alien fleets attack in waves, and there is a timer at the top of the screen. If you manage to destroy a whole fleet before the timer reaches zero, another replaces it. Conversely, if the fleet fails to destroy your ship (the Arcadia) in this time limit, it will break off the attack and home a new wave.

There is a wide choice of control keys, so it is easy to configure the keyboard to suit your particular finger-span. There is also a 'freeze' facility: any key on the top row halts execution, enabling you to take a break.

Arcadia is very deceptive in the early stages. Playing the game for the first time, it is highly unlikely you'll get past the initial stage of fairly ordinary-looking alien ships. But as you improve, you can appreciate the truly stunning graphics. There are twelve different waves of attackers: mutant butterflies, birds, spinning circles, octopus-type shapes, even a mini-Centipede game.

If you manage to get through four levels intact, you get an extra ship (you start with five). I am told that there is someone out there who has reached the 53rd level, a claim I find hard to believe as the Atarian Empire is no soft touch.

This cassette really does show that, given sufficient imagination, Spectrum graphics can match up to almost any other machine around.